A long time ago I went to college and studied Marketing because it was my passion. What I did not realize at the time was how technology was evolving and changing the fundamentals of traditional marketing. In today's modern world a marketing professional has to be more technically skilled than ever before, from knowing how to design graphics, to building websites, to writing insightful blogs, to programming codes, to performing SEO, and so forth. Unlike most IT graduates, I do not have a background OR experience in this field. I did not start from a young age. Sure, I have a business degree and understand marketing concepts; however, compared to today's student graduates in curricula such as Computer Science with fair experience in their field, how can I compete? How can I distinguish myself to my employers? Currently I am in the process of training myself to be a professional marketer, from learning about inbound marketing, to integrating the value of social media, to becoming certified in Google AdWords and Google Analytics, to learning how to write code, to designing graphics, and so forth. My concern is that, from an employer's perspective, any amount of knowledge may not make up for the lack of experience. Is there anything I can do to give me an edge in today's competitive labor-force, as a marketing professional? Any insights and/or tips would be greatly appreciated.
You can't be a "pro" until you have a proven track record. Companies may take a punt on your based on your training and published work, or they may hire you as an assistant and give you real world experience with a real pro.
Yes, definitely in today's labor force, as a marketing professional you have the access to data and information to share freely. You can easily show what products, services or companies you help generate traffic and/or sales for. You can even start a website/service for them(potential hire) as a sub-domain website and drive test-sales or traffic to it.This will show your actual/immediate skills. Is that something you tried outside of portfolio. Cheers, Graphics5
Being a professional requires well experienced in the related field and this kind of competitive skill is earned and improve time after time.
This is an interesting question, it's not so much about being a marketing Pro than it is about how to handle the question about the lack of an experience at the interview. In sales, we call it the "agree" rather than "disagree" approach. You can use the same approach here. When you are faced with a tough objection, agree, and then show them other benefits. You can say something along these lines "Yes, I agree..I understand what you mean..I know I don't have a lot of hands on experience. But if given an opportunity I can prove that I can perform like an experienced person. I had done this project in the past with these results. Here are some of my blogs and social media posts that performed well. I had helped organize this event at college and it was a huge success, I had helped drive traffic to our group online magazine.....etc."
I am not sure there is such a person that can be called a Marketing Pro. This is always about self-development and especially in marketing, where startegies and technologies used are constantly changing. It is impossible to become a jack of all trades, don't you agree with me?